Passionate TV fans are like puppies with a chew toy: They sink their teeth — and hearts — into their favorite shows and just refuse to let go.

In the case of “Veronica Mars,” an offbeat gem of a series starring Kristen Bell as a whip-smart teen detective, the fans — or “Marshmallows,” as they are known — put their money where their mouth is. By funding a historic $5.7 million Kickstarter campaign, they've given the show a miraculous big-screen resurrection, seven years after it was killed off.

Their investment has been rewarded with a brisk and sweetly satisfying, if predictable, film that gets the band back together again and pretty much hits all the beats you expect it to hit.

It opens with an introductory recap montage that works to bring everyone, including newbies, up to speed. Veronica, a champion of high school misfits, details how she began her sleuthing ways as a 15-year-old trying to learn who murdered her best friend, Lilly Kane. It was a way of coping with her personal pain while growing up in Neptune, a seaside town rife with class wars.

Cut to New York City, where Veronica, now a hotshot Stanford grad, is poised to take a job with a high-powered law firm. She's also joined at the hip with her nerdy college sweetheart, Stosh “Piz” Piznarski (Chris Lowell). Neptune? It's but a speck in her rearview mirror and not even an impending 10-year high school reunion is enough of a pull. She wants no reminders of the old “angry, vengeful me.”

Advertisement

But like the show's obsessive devotees, Veronica can't really move on. She gets a call from Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), her former hot-tempered nemesis, and onetime flame, who has been accused of killing his rock-star girlfriend. So off to Neptune she goes with a promise to be back soon. Yeah, right.

The crime and the reunion are convenient excuses for creator Rob Thomas and writing partner Diane Ruggiero to send out the call to members of their talented cast. And it truly does feel like we're connecting with old BFFs as Veronica catches up with Wallace (Percy Daggs III), Mac (Tina Majorino), Weevil (Francis Capra) and several others. Good vibes abound.

But the reunion to savor the most is between Veronica and her sheriff-turned-private-eye dad, Keith (Enrico Colantoni). Their seemingly effortless on-screen chemistry produced one of TV's most endearing father-daughter relationships and it's a joy to see them back together, exchanging warm glances and sarcastic barbs, while also butting heads. Together, they provide some of the film's best moments.

As for the central mystery, it's not exactly mind-blowing in its complexity. But whodunit cases have never been the main point with “Veronica Mars,” which is more interested in examining social injustice, and class division through the eyes of a strong, self-confident young woman. Fortunately, Bell, as charming and witty as ever, smoothly steps back into the role she was made to play.

Even with the Kickstarter cash, Thomas had to pinch pennies, so “Veronica Mars” isn't artificially amped up with special effects or exotic locales like many TV-to-big-screen projects. Instead Thomas goes out of his way to please the show's fandom in other ways, cramming the story with in-jokes, slick visuals and lots of really fun cameos that we won't spoil here.

On occasion, it feels like pandering, especially when the film awkwardly addresses the lingering feelings between Veronica and Logan, a plot line that the so-called “shippers” were always hung up on.

Then again, why not give the fans what they want — and paid for? Along those lines, the film winds up in a place that seems to suggest we could see more of “Veronica Mars” at the cineplex in the future.

Missy Franklin, Jenny Simpson, Adeline Gray and three other Colorado women could be big players at the 2016 Rio OlympicsWhen people ask Missy Franklin for her thoughts about the Summer Olympics that will begin a year from Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, she hangs a warning label on her answer.